I love to read. Books and articles, for me, are the key to filling a giant blank journal in my head.

A number of years ago, I was sitting at my desk with a huge book in my hands - I think it was a version of the MS Access Bible. A co-worker walked by and asked me if I liked what I was reading. He happened to be a fairly pompous fellow, so I braced myself and replied that I did like it. Then he asked me if I understood it. (Really?) Yes, I understand it. He seemed amazed and commented that he prefers Shareholder Agreements. I told him I could read those too and he walked away without really commenting.

That Access book and the two or three others I had piled on my desk at that time weren’t the most interesting reading I’ve ever done. Sometimes it took me a few tries before what I needed to do finally worked. But the reading I did gave me so many ideas. It gave me ways to make my projects work better and do more for our office. I was able to glean ideas by reading about functions in those books that I didn’t already know.

I’m still getting ideas from the content that I read, but these days I do the majority of my reading in an RSS reader or Kobo rather than a software brick, er, manual. I’m currently subscribed to 171 blogs, many of which are news blogs and that is how I keep up-to-date with what’s going on in social media, tech and gadgets.

What that means is that I have roughly 3-4,000 posts each week that I flip through to either discard immediately, scan to determine value and discard, or spend a tad more time reading. It’s a lot of reading, but it’s worth it because it’s professional development. I don’t need to know all of it, but I need to know a lot of it.

Essentially, other people’s work gives me inspiration for my own. It generates ideas and thoughts and opinions. I can’t think of a better way to have a continual flow of blog ideas than to read others’ blogs. There is always something you’ll have a comment on or disagree with or support and want to add your own perspective. That’s one of the great advantages of social media - the ability to have discussions that are in-depth on our own time and terms.

So, next time you’re stuck feeling unsure about what to write, go do some reading.